Not ‘just a book’: Woman goes viral in search for missing custom Book of Mormon

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — Earlier this week, Jackie Lonergan frantically took to social media, posting to a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Facebook group looking for help.

While flying back home to New York from Salt Lake City, she lost her journal filled with notes of her faith and a custom-painted Book of Mormon somewhere in the Salt Lake City International Airport.

She spent the next four hours before her flight searching through stores, restrooms, and trash cans with the help of airport staff, security, and desk agents. After exhausting every possible resource, Lonergan got onto her plane and shared the now-viral post on Facebook.

And the response, she said, was overwhelming.

“By the time I got off the plane, it had over 600 comments and hundreds of reactions,” explained Lonergan. “People were messaging me saying they had friends or family who were flying through or who were pilots or they lived near the airport and were going to go check for me.”

Lonergan had just recently joined the Church after a chance meeting with a pair of missionaries in her native upstate New York. She said she was coming home from a morning coffee run with her friend when they were approached. She said she nervously giggled at the missionaries and brushed them off saying, “Carry on boys.”

But the moment stuck with her.

“They carried on, we went inside, and I just froze. I couldn’t stop myself from thinking how much I had judged them so quickly without listening to them,” she explained. “I had this prompting to go back and find them. They ended up being on my back porch and we chit-chatted for a little bit and scheduled my first lesson.”

Since then, Lonergan got her custom-painted Book of Mormon – adorned with the phrase “carry on boys” written in calligraphy among other works of art. Her journal displayed her name, written on a nametag she had received a church-sponsored dance. The notebook itself was filled with personal notes from her Church lessons.

Images courtesy: Jackie Lonergan

She told ABC4.com that these pieces were more than “just a book” or “just a notebook” but were very sentimental and personal for her faith.

“I hold them so dearly to my heart because of some of the notes in there. I only have pictures of a few of the pages and I am holding on to those real tight,” said Lonergan. “I’ve been looking over those images and crying, and it just means so much to me. I just want to do everything I can to find them until I’m told there really is no shot.”

While her journal and Book of Mormon are still missing, Lonergan said the search continues.

Both Delta Air Lines and the Salt Lake International Airport have open lost item claims filed and both have been working with Lonergan in finding the two books. She said her post is even making its way through the Delta employee group chat after one employee saw it on Facebook.

Meanwhile, the online community has come out in full support, with some driving more than an hour and a half to check in with the airport on the lost items. Others offered to redo the custom painting on another Book of Mormon to send to her. Her friend picked up a Book of Mormon after coming across it in a thrift shop and also said they’d give it a custom painting.

While Lonergan expressed her sadness for losing such sentimental items, she said the resounding support from the community has meant the world to her.

MJ Jewkes contributed to this report.